As the release of George Lucas’ Star Wars franchise draws nearer, we are starting to learn more about the inevitable changes that Lucas has put the films through this time around. Last week, we found out about a few of the visual tweaks that have been given to the films. Now we have news of two changes to the audio in films from the original trilogy.
The first is a seemingly minor one, but it is a bit jarring. The Kryat Dragon call that Obi-Wan Kenobi makes to scare the Sand People away from Luke in the original Star Wars film has been changed. The new version lasts a bit longer but sounds a bit more synthesized towards the end. Listen for yourself in the following clip –
The second is far more jarring and outright stupid. During the climactoce scene in Return Of The Jedi between Luke Skywalker, Darth Vader and Emperor Palpatine on board the under construction second Death Star, Lucas has added some additional dialogue for Vader. Specifically, one word- “No!” As this is the moment where it could be argued that Vader forsook the Dark Side of the Force and became once again Anakin Skywalker, I suppose that Lucas is trying to draw some parallel to the end of Revenge Of The Sith where ANakin awakes to find himself in the Vader armor, his journey to the Dark Side complete. And if that is the case, then Lucas is perhaps even more deaf to the voice of his fans than I previously suspected as that scene in Sith is one of the most derided moments of the prequel trilogy. And let’s face it, there are a lot of moments in the prequel trilogy that are pretty bad.
Unfortunately, these changes have been confirmed by Badass Digest, so we can’t wave them away as a possible prank. I’m sure that as the release date of September 16 approaches, we’ll be getting word of more changes.
